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UNLINK(2) BSD System Calls Manual UNLINK(2) NAME unlink -- remove directory entry LIBRARY Standard C Library (libc, -lc) SYNOPSIS #include <unistd.h> int unlink(const char *path); DESCRIPTION The unlink() system call removes the link named by path from its direc- tory and decrements the link count of the file which was referenced by the link. If that decrement reduces the link count of the file to zero, and no process has the file open, then all resources associated with the file are reclaimed. If one or more process have the file open when the last link is removed, the link is removed, but the removal of the file is delayed until all references to it have been closed. The path argument may not be a directory. RETURN VALUES The unlink() function returns the value 0 if successful; otherwise the value -1 is returned and the global variable errno is set to indicate the error. ERRORS The unlink() succeeds unless: [ENOTDIR] A component of the path prefix is not a directory. [ENAMETOOLONG] A component of a pathname exceeded 255 characters, or an entire path name exceeded 1023 characters. [ENOENT] The named file does not exist. [EACCES] Search permission is denied for a component of the path prefix. [EACCES] Write permission is denied on the directory containing the link to be removed. [ELOOP] Too many symbolic links were encountered in translat- ing the pathname. [EPERM] The named file is a directory. [EPERM] The named file has its immutable or append-only flag set, see the chflags(2) manual page for more informa- tion. [EPERM] The directory containing the file is marked sticky, and neither the containing directory nor the file to be removed are owned by the effective user ID. [EBUSY] The entry to be unlinked is the mount point for a mounted file system. [EIO] An I/O error occurred while deleting the directory en- try or deallocating the inode. [EROFS] The named file resides on a read-only file system. [EFAULT] The path argument points outside the process's allo- cated address space. SEE ALSO chflags(2), close(2), link(2), rmdir(2), symlink(7) HISTORY The unlink() function appeared in Version 6 AT&T UNIX. The unlink() system call traditionally allows the super-user to unlink directories which can damage the file system integrity. This implementa- tion no longer permits it. BSD February 23, 2005 BSD
NAME | LIBRARY | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | RETURN VALUES | ERRORS | SEE ALSO | HISTORY
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